SAFE HAVEN AIMS TO PROTECT CITY CHILDREN ON WAY TO CLASS

Terry Wilson, Tribune Staff WriterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Seeking to help children feel safer as they begin walking to school next week, education officials and law enforcement authorities on Thursday described programs that will give young people places to go if they feel threatened.

The programs, called Safe Passages and Safe Havens, were started by the Chicago Area Policing Strategy groups, which use volunteers to create safer communities.

Under the programs, children can go to businesses with Safe Haven signs in their windows and get help from workers there.

"When we were growing up, we had some worries on our mind as we went to school," said Cook County State's Atty. Richard Devine, who attended a press conference at the Dvorak School, 3615 W. 16th St. "Had we prepared for that test? Had we done our homework? Were we a little too talkative in class, and were we going to get in trouble for that?"

Now, Devine said, young people worry about whether they will make it to school unharmed.

"We have to make sure there is an oasis of safety in this world, and if ever there should be one, it has to be in our schools," Devine said.

In a move to make parents stronger participants in the process, Mayor Richard Daley recently asked parents to walk their children to school when the new semester starts Tuesday. Parents will be given maps of the safest streets for children to travel.

The maps show the intersections where crossing guards are stationed, the locales where parent patrol volunteers can be found and the businesses participating in the Safe Haven program.

Carlos Azcoitia said there are 435,000 students enrolled in Chicago's public schools, and 90 percent of them walk to school. If parents walk with them, their children will learn the safest routes to take, he said.

The maps also show the routes covered by "walking school buses," groups of children who walk to school with adult volunteers.

"It's fun," said Yvonne Rogers, 40, a volunteer who walks 10 children to the Dvorak School each day. "We sing songs on the way."

Ruth Wilson, a parent who has been the coordinator for the walking school-bus program at the Dvorak School since last fall, said it has been very successful.

"We haven't had any kids get injured or hit by cars or hurt by gangbangers," she said. "It helps parents who have younger children at home. And the kids are excited to know that somebody cares for them. It gives them a sense of school pride."